Abundance New York 2026 State Comptroller Candidate Questionnaire
Adem Bunkeddeko
New York State Comptroller
Background
Please briefly describe your background and why you are running for this office.
My lived experience is why I’m running.
My parents came to the United States from Uganda as refugees and built their lives through hard, often invisible labor as home health aides. I grew up in a one-bedroom apartment with my siblings, with extended family moving in and out as people worked to build stability in New York.
Because of their sacrifice, I accessed opportunity and ultimately graduated from Harvard Business School. But I know that path is becoming less attainable.
New York is not just facing an affordability crisis. We are facing an opportunity crisis.
The Comptroller’s office commands extraordinary financial authority. It should not sit on the sidelines while housing costs rise, transit falters, and inequality deepens. Public money should build public prosperity.
We can honor our obligations to retirees while investing boldly in the next generation of New Yorkers.
I am running to ensure the financial power of this office works for working people.
How are you differentiated from your opponent(s)? What does your path to victory look like in your district?
I offer a distinct vision for the Comptroller’s office grounded in two principles: delivering strong returns while investing in public good.
1. Using public capital to expand supply and growth
I will use the scale of the nearly $300 billion pension fund to invest in assets that generate strong returns while expanding economic capacity.
That includes:
•Affordable and workforce housing
•Clean energy and resilient infrastructure
•Modern transit systems
•Economic development that lowers costs and expands opportunity
New York’s core challenge is not just redistribution. It is underproduction. We are not building enough housing, not building fast enough, and not investing at the scale required. Public capital can help close that gap.
Government Delivery Reform
SEQRA reform: New York should reform the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) to reduce the time and scope of environmental review for housing, transit, renewable energy, and resilience projects.
Agree
Civil Service Reform: New York should make it easier for the government to hire the staff they need by making exams more job-relevant, allowing work experience to count instead of degrees, and enabling temporary appointments.
Agree
Capital Project Procurement Reform: New York State should reform the rules around capital project delivery to create a framework that more closely matches how the School Construction Authority and Economic Development Corporation operate today, i.e., waive ULURP, grant flexible delivery methods.
Agree
Procurement: New York State and New York City should embrace challenge-based procurement, allow more flexible payment methods, and advance "other transaction authority"-like powers.
Agree
Public Services: New York State should overhaul applications for housing, food benefits, cash assistance, and health care to reduce the time cost burden for applicants and should make burdensome reapplications less necessary, even if this moderately increases the risk of people taking advantage of the system.
Agree
Additional context
Economic dignity requires both immediate stability and long-term wealth-building.
As Comptroller, I will:
•Support child opportunity accounts funded through investment returns
•Use audit authority to ensure full utilization of federal and state anti-poverty resources
•Increase transparency when critical programs are underfunded or underspent
Housing
Expanding Housing: Addressing the housing affordability crisis requires increasing production of all kinds of housing, including market-rate units.
Agree
Homelessness/Expedited permanent supportive housing: Addressing the homelessness crisis requires a housing-first solution such as expedited permanent supportive housing for those in need, because shelters are not a permanent solution.
Agree
Transit Oriented Development: New York should allow for more housing to be built near existing transit stations including near commuter rail stations, even if that requires changing zoning.
Agree
Build Code Reform: New York, at the city and state level, should embrace building code and licensing reforms (e.g., smaller elevator size requirements, modular construction, mass timber) that make it cheaper to build housing while maintaining safety.
Agree
Additional context
New York’s housing crisis is both a supply crisis and a financing crisis.
As Comptroller, I will:
•Create a dedicated affordable housing investment strategy within the pension fund to expand supply
•Support sustainable funding mechanisms for rent relief through investment returns
•Increase transparency to ensure public dollars support long-term affordability
Housing must be treated as essential infrastructure for economic stability and community safety.
Transit
Transit Cost Containment: New York should act in a coordinated fashion to reduce the cost of building new transit projects, including reducing the size of stations and allowing the temporary disruption of street traffic to more quickly complete projects.
Agree
Busway Expansion: New York City should: 1) expand the number of busways (routes where private cars are banned); and 2) eventually pursue bus rapid transit lines to increase bus speeds throughout the city.
Agree
Automated Camera Expansion: New York should allow New York City to expand automated camera enforcement, including red light cameras, bus lane cameras, and bike lane cameras, to make streets safer.
Agree
Parking: New York City should charge more for parking and reduce or eliminate free street parking.
Agree
Additional context
The MTA is one of New York’s most critical public systems, yet it has suffered from decades of underinvestment and insufficient transparency.
As Comptroller, I will conduct a full forensic audit of the MTA to provide a clear accounting of how funds are used.
I will:
•Prioritize stable funding for equitable programs like Fair Fares
•Halt new pension fund purchases of MTA debt until transparency improves
•Push for a fare freeze during the audit
I will also explore pension-backed investment in large-scale transit infrastructure, including high-speed rail, drawing on models like CDPQ’s REM system to expand regional connectivity and economic growth.
Clean Energy
Solar Energy: New York State should preempt local regulations that effectively ban solar projects by establishing a ceiling on restrictions and should streamline solar permitting by adopting automated systems in order to enable more solar energy.
Agree
Nuclear Energy Development: New York should expand its nuclear energy capacity by building new reactors and extending the life of existing plants in order to hit the goal of 100% zero-emission electricity generation by 2040.
Agree
Additional context
I will use the pension fund’s investment capacity to support large-scale clean energy infrastructure, including transmission and grid modernization.
These investments can generate strong, long-term returns while reducing energy costs and supporting economic growth across the state.
Candidate Statement
Abundance Examples from Your Work: Please describe a specific example from your record (legislative, professional, or community work) where you championed a project or policy that is aligned with our agenda. What obstacles did you overcome, and what was the outcome?
At LISC, I worked on advancing affordable housing and community development projects that required aligning public, private, and nonprofit capital.
One challenge was that viable projects often stalled due to fragmented funding and capital gaps. We worked to structure investments that brought together multiple funding sources to move projects forward.
The result was not just individual developments, but a model for how coordinated capital can expand housing supply and economic opportunity.
This experience reinforced my belief that New York’s challenge is not a lack of ideas, but a lack of coordinated capital and execution.
Priorities: If elected (or re-elected) as Comptroller, what are your top three priorities? Please be specific about the policies you would advance and what you hope to achieve.
•Create a New York Opportunity Trust Fund using investment returns from unclaimed funds to support childcare, housing stability, and seed accounts for every child
•Invest in affordable housing through a dedicated pension fund strategy that expands supply while delivering strong returns
•Use fiscal oversight to ensure public funds are not supporting harmful or unlawful enforcement activity and to protect workers and communities
Pension Fund Investment: The State pension fund holds almost $300 billion in assets. How do you think about balancing the fiduciary duty to generate returns for pensioners against other goals the fund's investment decisions might serve—such as economic development or social priorities?
The Comptroller’s fiduciary duty is paramount. Strong returns are not in conflict with broader economic goals. In fact, long-term returns depend on a stable, growing economy.
New York’s economic challenges—housing costs, infrastructure gaps, and limited opportunity—are also investment opportunities when approached with discipline.
The Comptroller’s office is uniquely positioned to both safeguard retirement security and strengthen the state’s economic foundation.
There is no office like it in America. In the right hands, it can help build a stronger, more dynamic, and more inclusive economy.
We can honor our obligations to retirees while investing boldly in the next generation of New Yorkers.